UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT DECISIONS ON-LINE
ESSEX PUBLIC ROAD BOARD V. SKINKLE, 140 U. S. 334 (1891)
140 U. S. 334U.S. Supreme Court
Essex Public Road Board v. Skinkle, 140 U.S. 334 (1891)
Essex Public Road Board v. Skinkle
No. 262
Submitted March 25, 1891
Decided Flay 11, 1591
140 U.S. 334
ERROR TO THE SUPREME COURT
OF THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY
Syllabus
An executive agency, created by a statute of a state for the purpose of improving public highways and empowered to assess the cost of its improvements upon adjoining lands and to put up for sale and buy in for a term of years for its own use any such lands delinquent in the payment of the assessment, does not, by such a purchase, acquire a contract clubjuris
right in the land so bought which the state cannot modify without violating the provisions of the Constitution of the United States.
Such a transaction is matter of law, and not of contract, and as such is not open to constitutional objections.